The 20th Annual (really? 20 years? Damn we're old) Tout Wars weekend took place at Rock 'N' Reilly's patio bar this weekend. The venue is the home of the FNTSY Radio Network's beautiful new studio, so along with SiriusXM we had two networks covering the draft, which is pretty awesome for the industry.

If you want to skip the preamble or even my article and just see the results from all the auctions this weekend - you can go here.

When we last wrote about Tout Wars, we discussed the unrelenting disaster that was my 2016 team. For those that don't want to read the whole thing, the short of it was that both my draft structure and my player evaluation was tragically off. In a year where hitting budgets were grossly inflated by Steve Moyer's strategy, I spent less overall on hitting than I typically do, and I apportioned it awfully, rostering six hitters at either $2 or $1. I then lost Prince Fielder, a $27 purchase, for most of the season after he did so little prior to the injury. The result was I had the fewest at-bats in the league, and ended up with just 12 hitting points over five categories.

My plan this year was reactive, obviously, but I wanted to allocate a greater percentage of my budget on hitting in an attempt to better compete in the counting categories. It's not a novel concept at all, but it's still a basic one that I had lost last year. It's really hard to do well in mono ("only") leagues without accumulating at-bats. It's the foundation for Ron Shandler's famous LIMA plan, and many other successful strategies. Last year I spent $171 on hitting, 65.7% of my budget. I set my hitting budget at $190 and tried to define my slots better so as to not get too top-heavy. Ironically, that meant preparing more specifically on how to apportion my pitching, to better avoid impulse buys and stay disciplined in the auction*.

* When I say "stay disciplined," it doesn't mean I changed my behavior in the auction, however. I'm actively bidding on almost all of the players, I still put in a lot of jump bids to accelerate the pace, and I vary the types of players that I nominate. But I believe I did a better job of (a) not falling in love with certain players that would alter my budget, and (b) setting the expectation level more realistically. *

This year's closer pool helps inform this planning. The AL closer pool is surprisingly deep and stable. I count 10 closers that I'd confidently own as my first closer:

Aroldis Chapman, Zach Britton, Kelvin Herrera, Edwin Diaz, Ken Giles, Alex Colome, Cody Allen, Roberto Osuna, Craig Kimbrel and Francisco Rodriguez - roughly in that order. Last year I did a jump-bid on Wade Davis that stuck, at a price that was at least $2 over par. It's a small example of how I blew my budget, but one that I knew I'd be able to overcome. I set a $17 slot to get one of those closers, feeling pretty confident I would be able to accomplish that task. I was right - but just barely! I bought the ninth of those closers to come off the board, Alex Colome, for $16.

This strategy also necessarily locked me out of the top tier of AL starters, but as a class I'm not all that confident they're a good return on investment. Instead, I budgeted to pay $20 at most for one of the best AL starters if possible, with that list stopping with Masahiro Tanaka. But I believed that there was only a small chance that I'd have that opportunity - sure enough, Nando Di Fino snagged Tanaka at $23. But I believed that I could afford two pitchers for $30 from the next class of starters instead, and that's exactly what I did, getting Jose Quintana for $17 and Michael Pineda for $13.

But enough about the planning process - here's my full squad:

C - Russell Martin 17, Alex Avila 2
1B/3B/CR - Eric Hosmer 22, Josh Donaldson 38, Ryon Healy 10
2B/SS/MI - Jonathan Schoop 15, Andrelton Simmons 8, Christian Colon 1
OF - George Springer 29, Kole Calhoun 19, Jacoby Ellsbury 16, Ben Revere 6
UT - Chris Carter 5
SW (Swingman) - Nori Aoki 1

SP - Jose Quintana 17, Michael Pineda 13, Jharel Cotton 9, Drew Pomeranz 4, Josh Tomlin 2
RP - Alex Colome 16, Brandon Kintzler 7, Ryan Pressly 2, Will Harris 1

RES - Ricky Nolasco, Paulo Orlando, Billy Burns, Darwin Barney

When looking at my roster, keep in mind that this is an OBP league instead of using batting average. That's why I was willing to go after Russell Martin for $17 and Josh Donaldson for $38. Getting Donaldson allowed me the latitude to pick up some mid-priced power with Jonathan Schoop, as I was finding it difficult to add power at an affordable rate otherwise.

I have fewer part-time players this year than I did last year, by a wide margin. My MI slot is a problem, as Colon might not even make the roster, which is why I snagged Darwin Barney in the reserves. That'll be a position I'll aggressively target in free agent bidding. I have three other non-catcher part-time players - Revere (who might work his way into more playing time as a side result of the Luis Valbuena injury early on), Carter and Aoki. I think I like the Aoki buy better than the Carter one, as he's on the good side of a potential platoon and provides good OBP when he plays. Carter went cheaper thanks to Greg Bird's monster spring and might not play often early in the season. But an injury to a Yankee outfielder, DH or Bird will open up time for Carter - let's just hope it doesn't happen to Ellsbury!

I'm pretty happy with my pitching staff, though I need at least one more starting pitcher at some point. I suspect that when one emerges on the waiver wire (and they always do), I'm going to have to cut one of my reserve Royals outfielders.

What are your thoughts on my draft, or the draft as a whole? Let me know on Twitter (@Jeff_Erickson). I'll also post this to my Facebook page and you can comment there.